


A Rhapsody of Seduction

by almostafantasia



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Day 2 - Eve rescues Villanelle, F/F, Innuendo, Killing Eve Week, Musicians, Pianist Eve, Violinist Villanelle, a loose interpretation of the word 'rescue', and Villanelle's ego which can be seen from space, feat. Eve in glasses, implied sex, too much flirtation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26242447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostafantasia/pseuds/almostafantasia
Summary: Internationally acclaimed violinist Villanelle finds herself in a bit of a pickle when her accompanist falls sick the day before her debut London recital. Luckily Konstantin knows somebody who can help her out.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 33
Kudos: 267
Collections: Killing Eve Week 2020





	A Rhapsody of Seduction

“A stomach bug?”

Villanelle receives the news while she is practising in her hotel suite. The knock on the door, interrupting as she runs through her scales to warm up her fingers, is unwelcome at the time, but it is nothing compared to the news that Konstantin gives her when she lets him into the room.

“Nadia has a stomach bug?” Villanelle says again, in complete disbelief. She carefully sets her violin down on a nearby table and drops onto the couch by the window. “The recital is tomorrow. How am I supposed to find another accompanist before then?”

Konstantin wanders over to the trolley that holds the remnants of Villanelle’s room service breakfast and picks through it with his fingers, tearing off part of an uneaten pastry and lifting it to his mouth as if he hasn’t just delivered career-ruining news.

“This is my London debut!” Villanelle reminds him, running an exasperated hand through her hair. “If this concert goes well, I could get asked to play at the Royal Albert Hall with the London Philharmonic later in the year.”

“I know,” says Konstantin, as he continues to pick at the leftovers of Villanelle’s breakfast. “I am working on a solution. You will still perform tomorrow night, you have my word.”

“Without an accompanist?” demands Villanelle. She gets to her feet and crosses over to Konstantin, glowering at him in a way that she hopes conveys just how annoyed she is that Nadia has managed to fall ill on the day before a big recital. “You know I can command a stage on my own but I haven’t prepared the right repertoire. I cannot rehearse an entirely new programme in just twenty-four hours.”

“I’m sorting it,” Konstantin tells her, though his voice doesn’t contain nearly enough urgency for the seriousness of the situation. “The principal of the Royal College of Music is an old friend of mine. I have asked her if she knows anybody who can stand in for Nadia.” 

A phone starts ringing in the depths of Konstantin’s black coat and he rummages around in his pocket until he locates it.

“This is her,” he says to Villanelle, before he lifts the phone to his ear. “Carolyn? Hi.”

Villanelle turns her back on Konstantin as he starts talking into the phone and picks up her violin once more, putting the shoulder rest into place and deciding to walk circles around Konstantin as she resumes her practice. Villanelle’s fingers race up and down the fingerboard as she shoots off scale after scale at lightning fast speed, deliberately playing loud enough that the person on the other end of the call will be able to hear how good she is and find her the best accompanist possible for tomorrow night’s recital.

Konstantin glares at Villanelle as she continues to play, but his expression softens when the person on the phone says something that he likes the sound of.

“You have somebody?” he asks them. “When can Villanelle meet her?”

Villanelle switches to arpeggios, playing up four full octaves to elicit a wince from Konstantin as she hits the highest notes just as she passes his unoccupied ear.

“Two o’clock?” Konstantin continues. “She’ll be there. And I’ll tell her to be on her best behaviour.”

Konstantin hangs up the phone without so much as a ‘thank you’ or a ‘goodbye’, then reaches out to grab the neck of Villanelle’s violin, lifting it away from her so that she can no longer continue practising.

“Hey!” she protests. “My Stradivarius! Be careful with that!”

“I have found you a new accompanist,” says Konstantin, ignoring her cry of outrage as he puts her violin down on top of its case. “Her name is Eve Polastri. She is a professor of keyboard at the Royal College. She will rehearse with you this afternoon.”

“A professor?” scoffs Villanelle, rolling her eyes. “I want an accompanist, not a teacher.”

“You are giving me a migraine!” Konstantin bellows at her. He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his forefinger for a few seconds, before he lets out a sigh and continues at a more normal volume, “You will meet Eve Polastri this afternoon at the College for a rehearsal of your recital. There is a catch, however.”

Villanelle lets her head fall backwards and a groan erupts from her throat. She cannot imagine anything worse than being accompanied by a piano teacher rather than a professional accompanist, but Konstantin is always full of nasty surprises.

“What is the catch?”

Konstantin hesitates, as if scared of her reaction, before he says, “She wants to perform too.”

Villanelle’s head jerks around to look at Konstantin. She stares at him unblinkingly, waiting for an indication that he is joking, but he remains deadly serious.

“I don’t think I understand,” says Villanelle, shaking her head from side to side as her eyebrows knit together in a deep frown. “She’s an accompanist.”

“She is apparently a very good soloist in her own right too.”

“But it’s  _ my  _ concert.”

Konstantin pours himself a glass of juice from the jug on the trolley and ambles over to the window, looking out at the bleak London landscape beyond.

“She is the only option,” he tells Villanelle, when he turns his back on the window seconds later. “With Nadia sick, you either let Eve Polastri perform too, or you cancel the concert.”

Folding her arms across her chest in indignation, Villanelle announces, “Then I cancel the concert.”

Konstantin glares at her, but the angry effect he is probably aiming for is diminished by the tiny glass of juice in his large hand.

“Why do you insist on always being such a brat?”

“It is my concert. Not hers.” And then, because she isn’t sure if Konstantin is aware of just how unimpressed she is with this newest development, she adds, “I’ve travelled all the way from Moscow for this concert and you’re asking me to  _ share  _ the stage.”

“Like you said, this concert could lead to some great opportunities in this country and further afield,” Konstantin points out.

“Opportunities that I will not get if I am overshadowed by a selfish pianist,” Villanelle argues. 

“Do you not think you’re good enough?” asks Konstantin. “Is that the problem?”

It’s a low blow. Villanelle simmers with rage at the mere suggestion. She has not spent hours a day practising her violin since she was a small child to be ‘not good enough’.

“I know I’m good enough,” Villanelle tells him, picking up her violin once more and silently moving her fingers across the fingerboard in muscle memory of one of the trickier passages she will be performing in the concert tomorrow. “But is she?”

“She will perform for fifteen minutes at the start of the concert,” explains Konstantin. “A warm up act, if you like. And then you will go on stage and you will wow that audience with Eve as your accompanist. She wants to rehearse with you at the Royal College of Music this afternoon. You can take the London Underground - the Piccadilly Line, I think.”

“Public transport with my violin?” scoffs Villanelle. “I will get a taxi, thank you.”

“And when you are practising with her, you will be nice and respectful and you will thank her for doing you a favour.”

“It’s not my fault that Nadia is sick.”

“Villanelle!” Konstantin barks, a glare of warning in his angry eyes.

“Fine,” sulks Villanelle. “I will be on my best behaviour. Now leave me alone. I am having a very traumatic day and I just want to practice my violin in peace.”

* * *

Villanelle’s annoyance at Eve Polastri’s demand that she also performs some solo repertoire in tomorrow evening’s recital disappears almost as soon as Villanelle arrives at the practice room at the Royal College of Music and realises that Eve is hot.

It would have been much easier for Konstantin to convince her to agree to this if he had led with that.

Of course, the one thing that Konstantin did get right is the fact that Villanelle can be a bit of a diva when she wants to be, which is why Villanelle is not going to let Eve know that she is attracted to her.

“Hi,” Villanelle says curtly, as she sweeps into the room and lets the soundproofed door swing softly shut behind her.

Eve is running through one of the more difficult passages of an accompaniment that Villanelle recognises as being one of her own, but she chooses to ignore that and crosses over to the table against the far wall, where she places her violin case down carefully and unzips it to take out her instrument.

“Hi, you must be Villanelle,” says Eve, stopping abruptly mid-piece and getting to her feet. She approaches Villanelle with an outstretched hand and introduces herself by saying, “My name is Eve.”

Villanelle glances from Eve’s face, where friendly brown eyes are framed by thick-rimmed glasses and her curly hair has been swept up into a messy bun on top of her head, down to the hand that Eve has offered out for her to shake and-

And oh god, her fingers. 

Villanelle is such a lesbian.

She turns away, cheeks turning slightly pink at the thought. Villanelle never gets flustered around women - it’s usually the other way around - but it’s the combination of how attractive Eve is, in a completely effortless sweatshirt and mom jeans kind of way, as well as the knowledge that decades of playing the piano will make her extremely dextrous with her fingers, that leaves Villanelle feeling a little bit warm. She shrugs out of her jacket and drapes it carefully over the back of a chair - it is Dolce and Gabbana, after all, so she can’t let it crease - then focuses on slotting the shoulder rest into place on the bottom of her violin instead.

“My manager says you requested a solo spot in the recital,” says Villanelle, when she hears Eve’s footsteps retreating towards the piano behind her. “Are you any good?”

“I’ve been playing since I was four, I did my first public recital at seven and my first full concerto at nine,” Eve tells her. “Since then, I’ve performed in over thirty different countries with some of the most renowned conductors and orchestras in the world. I’ve been teaching piano at the Royal College for twelve years and have held the position of Head of Keyboard Studies for the last six. So yes, I’m good. But are you?”

Villanelle lifts her violin to her neck and turns around, finding that Eve is sitting at the piano once again, an eyebrow arched in Villanelle’s direction. And she is so pretty - soft and lovely in so many ways, yet with a hint of a challenge on the barely noticeable curve of her full lips - that Villanelle decides in that moment that maybe, just maybe, if she has to share the spotlight with somebody, then it can be with this goddess incarnated.

Villanelle doesn’t say that though. Instead, she just smirks back.

“Of course I’m good,” she tells Eve, emphasising her point with a little flourish of her bow across the strings. “I’m amazing.”

“Good,” replies Eve, seemingly nonplussed by Villanelle’s arrogance.

Before either of them has a chance to say anything else, they are interrupted by a knock on the practice room door, and Villanelle can see a young man with a floppy fringe peering through the glass pane.

“Come in!” Eve calls out, beckoning for him to enter.

“Your photocopies, Professor Polastri,” he says, placing a stack of music on the piano. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thank you, Hugo,” says Eve. “Hey, what are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Well, I had plans but I can reschedule and…”

“Do that,” says Eve, cutting him off. “I need a page turner for a concert at the Barbican. Are you interested?”

Hugo’s eyes momentarily go wide, before he shoots Eve a charming smile.

“Anything for you, Professor.”

“Excellent,” Eve replies. “I’ll email you the details.”

“Or I could give you my num-”

“I’ll email you,” Eve insists, with a firm smile.

He leaves the room with a sleazy grin on his face, as if page-turning for a lowly accompanist will be the highlight of his miserable week, and Villanelle waits until the door closes behind him before she makes a comment.

“Are you sleeping with him?” she hisses at Eve, almost conspiratorially.

“With Hugo?” scoffs Eve. “Oh god no!” 

“He wants to,” Villanelle points out.

The look of disgust on Eve’s face as she turns to look at the door Hugo just disappeared through, as if expecting to find him still peering through the window, fills Villanelle with enormous delight.

“He’s in his twenties,” says Eve, a little shudder rippling through her body. “He wants to sleep with everybody.”

“I’m in my twenties and I-” Villanelle cuts herself off mid-sentence, pausing to think for a moment, before she concedes with a half-shrug. “Okay, fair point.”

Villanelle takes her own sheet music out of the zip pocket on the front of her violin case and arranges it on a music stand, which she moves to the middle of the practice room.

“So are you single?” she asks casually, as she starts to tune her violin with the tiny pegs at the foot of the bridge. “Got a boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

“Married to the piano,” Eve answers, without looking up from the score that she’s annotating.

“The sex must be shit.”

Eve looks up from the music and then, making a deliberate point to ignore Villanelle’s comment, she asks, “Which piece do you want to rehearse first?”

“Brahms,” answers Villanelle, knowing that it has the most complex piano part of all the pieces in her programme. If Eve isn’t up to the right standard, Villanelle would rather know sooner to save wasting a whole afternoon of rehearsal with the wrong person.

“At least I’ve played this one before,” says Eve, as she shuffles through the music until she finds the right piece, spreading the pages out across the stand and turning up the corners of a couple of pages to make the turns easier. “You’d be hard pressed to find somebody able to learn this accompaniment in a day.”

“I’m so lucky to have you then, aren’t I, Eve?” says Villanelle, shooting Eve a deliberately flirtatious look as she lifts her bow to the violin and begins to tune the strings.

“Let’s go from the top,” says Eve, ignoring Villanelle’s comment as her fingers glance over the keys to locate the notes for the opening chords. “I’ll be following you but stop me if there’s something you want to do differently.”

Satisfied that her violin is in tune, Villanelle puts her copy of the violin part onto a music stand as a prompt, not that she’ll be using it in the actual performance, and positions her violin and bow ready to play. She gives Eve a quick nod, and they begin.

* * *

_ How is your rehearsal? Are you behaving yourself? _

Villanelle reads Konstantin’s text as she puts her violin back in her case at the end of the rehearsal with Eve. Not that she would dream of admitting it to Konstantin, Eve is actually a much better accompanist than Nadia, despite the fact that Villanelle has been performing with Nadia since they were both students at the Moscow Conservatory.

Perhaps it is the fact that Eve has much more experience as a musician than Nadia does. Or the fact that she seems to understand the nuances of the music to a far greater depth than Nadia. Or even that there is just an undeniable chemistry between Villanelle and Eve that translates really well into the music they make together.

Though biased, Villanelle thinks it’s the latter.

_ The accompanist will do. Always behaving myself.  _ 😇 

Villanelle sends the text to Konstantin and drops her phone back into her pocket, before zipping up her violin case and hoisting it onto her back.

She turns to Eve, who pencils something onto one of the scores and then resumes running through a difficult passage of one of the accompaniments. Eve seems to be unaware that Villanelle is watching her, engrossed in the music even during practice. Villanelle cannot fault Eve’s dedication, committed to every single note as if it is the performance itself, and with a cute little crease between her eyes as her elegant fingers glide gracefully across the keys and-

Perhaps their undeniable chemistry will extend beyond the music. Villanelle hopes to find out.

“Hey, Eve?” 

Eve stops mid-phrase, her hands coming to rest on her own thighs as she looks up at Villanelle with her lower lip caught between her teeth and a curious look in her eyes.

God, she’s sexy.

“You live here in London, right?”

“I do,” answers Eve. 

“So you would know the best places to go out for a drink?”

“I don’t know about that,” says Eve, with a little grimace. “I don’t get out often.”

“Then let me take you out,” says Villanelle, approaching Eve and leaning against the side of the grand piano. “You choose the bar and I buy the drinks.” 

“Oh, I can’t ask you to…”

“You don’t have to ask.” Villanelle cuts Eve off mid-sentence and gives her a charming smile. “Consider it a thank you for agreeing to accompany me in the recital at such short notice.”

Eve considers the offer for a few seconds, before she says, “Then it would be rude of me to say no.”

Villanelle leans across Eve and picks up the pencil, then scribbles her number on the corner of the nearest sheet of music, not caring that it’s one of the accompaniments Eve needs for the recital tomorrow.

“Call me,” says Villanelle, putting the pencil down and taking a couple of swaggering steps backwards. “I’ll be waiting.”

* * *

“You brought me to a gay bar?” Villanelle splutters, when she notices the large rainbow flag hanging behind the bar and realises that most of the other clientele aren’t straight.

“And?” Eve asks, leaning on the bar beside Villanelle and arching an eyebrow. “I’m not in the mood to be hit on by men tonight.”

“Because you don’t want to cheat on your beloved Steinway?” teases Villanelle.

“No, because it’s tiring and they’re men.”

Villanelle laughs at this because she has never heard a more relatable sentence, but she doesn’t get a chance to say anything in response because she manages to catch a bartender’s attention.

“A bottle of Dom Perignon and two glasses please.”

The bartender raises an eyebrow but turns around and takes a bottle of champagne out of the fridge behind him.

“I don’t think they’re used to people buying champagne in here,” says Eve, gesturing with a nod of her head at a group of men further along the bar who have just ordered a tray of multicoloured shots. “Why champagne, anyway?”

“We’re celebrating,” announces Villanelle, as the bartender fills a bucket with ice and drops the bottle into it, before producing two champagne flutes from beneath the table.

“Celebrating what?”

Villanelle picks up the ice bucket with one hand and wraps the fingers of the other around the stems of the champagne flutes, then leads the way to an empty table in the corner of the bar.

“A new partnership,” says Villanelle.

“It’s only for one night.”

Villanelle peels the foil away from the top of the bottle, then skilfully unwinds the muselet, before popping the cork out of the bottle. As she fills each of the flutes with bubbles, she looks up at Eve and raises an eyebrow, before she replies, “That’s what they all say.”

Eve tilts her head to the side, as if she is analysing Villanelle, and asks, “Are you flirting with me?”

Villanelle replaces the bottle in the ice bucket, then slides one of the glasses across the table to Eve and lifts her own to her lips.

“You’d know if I was flirting with you.”

“You’re very assured. I noticed it earlier when you were playing too.” Eve pauses, then adds, “I like it.”

“Look who is flirting now,” teases Villanelle.

“I’m serious,” Eve continues as she takes a sip of champagne, then puts the glass down on the table so that she can use both hands expressively while she talks. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to prove to people that I’m good enough. My parents, teachers, audiences. Even myself. But you walked into that practice room today and did it so effortlessly.”

“Well, I am pretty amazing.”

Eve snorts, and it is an ugly noise but Villanelle finds herself becoming impossible more attracted to Eve by the second, especially as Eve lifts a hand and loosens the clip holding her hair back, shaking the curls out and running her fingers through the tresses.

“And very modest, too.”

Villanelle reaches a hand across and places it on Eve’s thigh, a respectful distance from her knee.

“You don’t have to prove anything to anybody,” she reassures Eve, staring into Eve’s deep brown eyes and almost losing herself in wide pupils that hold thousands of stories. “I know I only heard you play for a couple of hours and that you were just accompanying me, but I was pretty impressed.” Villanelle pauses, then adds, “You were easily the second best musician in that room.”

“Oh, stop it!” groans Eve, letting her head fall back, though Villanelle can tell that she is still amused.

“Can I ask you something serious?” asks Villanelle, tilting her head to one side as she turns fully to look at Eve. “Why did you decide that you wanted to do some solo repertoire at the beginning of the concert tomorrow? Konstantin - that’s my manager - told me it was a dealbreaker.”

“It wasn’t a dealbreaker,” Eve answers with a shrug, reaching out for her glass and lifting it to her lips for a quick sip. “I asked Carolyn if it would be possible and she said that she would make it happen.”

“But why?”

“I guess…” Eve trails off, brow furrowing as she thinks. “I guess I miss the life of a soloist. I was successful when I was young but there’s always new talent lurking behind you, somebody who is younger and more virtuosic and it’s difficult to stay at the top of the game. And since I got the teaching post at the College, I’ve spent most of my time teaching and accompanying. Both of which I love doing, by the way.”

Villanelle nods along to show that she is listening, though she cannot imagine ever being willing to give up the spotlight. She loves performing too much to let it go without a fight. And to turn to teaching instead? Villanelle knows that she doesn’t have the patience to deal with … well, to deal with pupils like  _ herself, _ if she is being completely honest.

“I don’t want the international acclaim or the recording contracts or whatever else you young folk might be chasing,” Eve continues. “But what I do want is to remember what it’s like to play for an audience that appreciates me, even if it’s just for fifteen minutes at the beginning of a concert for a Russian violin-playing diva. So when that chance came, I jumped at it. I get to perform tomorrow night. At the Barbican, no less.” 

Villanelle shrugs as she takes a sip of her drink and says, “I’ve played bigger.”

“You’re an asshole,” Eve says, shaking her head, though a hint of a smile is tugging at the corners of her lips.

* * *

The evening passes in a delightful blur. 

Once they step over the initial awkwardness of not really knowing each other, the conversation flows as easily as the champagne. There is no end of things to talk about - Villanelle could easily spend hours discussing her favourite symphonies or sharing stories of the best and worst conductors she’s ever worked with - but it runs much deeper than that. Eve just  _ gets _ Villanelle in a way that very few people ever do, she understands that Villanelle’s life has been built around hard work and solitude, that behind the overconfident facade, Villanelle knows she can’t take a single thing for granted.

At some point, perhaps when Villanelle goes up to the bar to order a second bottle, or maybe even when Eve returns from the bathroom, they end up sitting right next to each other, so close that their knees occasionally brush beneath the table. The touches are sporadic, straddling the line between accidental and deliberate, until Villanelle starts to feel fuzzy and content from the champagne and might possibly be nudging Eve’s thigh on purpose, just to test the water and see if she flinches away.

She doesn’t.

“So, Eve,” Villanelle eventually says, feeling emboldened enough to change the subject even though she hasn’t even come close to finishing their discussion about their favourite female composers of the twenty-first century. “You said you don’t want to be hit on by men. Does that mean you want women to hit on you instead?”

“Is that your way of asking if I’m gay?” asks Eve, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Villanelle lies effortlessly, shooting Eve a playful grin, “but now that you bring it up,  _ are _ you?”

“Bi, but I don’t really have the energy to date anybody at the moment.”

Villanelle agreed with a soft hum and says, “Dating is overrated.”

“No girlfriend in your life then?” asks Eve, arching a curious eyebrow.

“Eve!” Villanelle pretends to be outraged and clutches a faux dramatic hand to her chest. “How can you make assumptions about my sexuality like that?”

“I mean, come on,” says Eve, gesturing down at Villanelle’s outfit. “I don’t want to stereotype, but look at you.”

Villanelle glances down at what she is wearing - a stylish two-piece suit made out of a flattering dark green plaid, the pant legs short enough to reveal a scandalous amount of ankle and the jacket hanging open to show off the tight fitting white tank top that she wears underneath. On second thoughts, she has to reluctantly concede that Eve has a point. It  _ is _ one of her least heterosexual outfits.

“Touché.”

Eve reaches for her glass and takes a sip, before she rotates her body to look at Villanelle properly, a hint of a smirk gracing her lips.

“So, Villanelle. If you were going to hit on me right now, how would you do it?”

“Well, I guess I would…”

And Villanelle’s mind goes blank.

Villanelle’s mind never goes blank, especially not when she is picking up women. If there was a World Championship for seducing women, Villanelle would be the undisputed title-holder for several successive years. 

But Eve has turned her brain to jelly, or maybe it is the champagne or-

Eve smiles at her from beneath her pretty lashes, and oh yeah, it’s definitely Eve that has liquidized her brain.

“Uh, I … okay, so you know how I spend hours a day practising the violin? Maybe later I can show you how good I am with my fingers?”

Eve holds Villanelle’s expression for a few seconds, before she erupts into laughter that sends a pink tinge to Villanelle’s cheeks.

“Nope,” says Eve, shaking her head emphatically. “Doesn’t work. I’m a pianist, remember? I’ve heard that one too many times before. I tried dating apps after my divorce and too many gross men saw a picture of me at a piano and made a fingering joke.”

Villanelle washes down her sorrows with a mouthful of champagne, before she reluctantly concedes, “I’ve got to admit that it wasn’t my best line, but the other option was something about a G-string so…”

Eve snorts, and while it is a cute sound, Villanelle feels compelled to redeem herself for the uncharacteristically cheesy pickup lines.

“Of course, I could have told you that I was absolutely mesmerised by you from the moment I walked into the practice room,” says Villanelle, deliberately lowering her voice to a tone that has a track record of rendering women pliant to her desires. She reaches out to lay a gentle hand over Eve’s as she continues, “That there’s just something about your eyes, full of concentration and passion, hidden behind those cute little glasses. That I could hardly focus during our rehearsal because I kept looking at you and getting distracted, thinking about running my hands through your amazing hair, looking at your fingers and imagining the things they could do to me. Wishing that it was me that you were coaxing beautiful music out of, not that Steinway.”

It’s not entirely intentional, but as she reaches the end of her little speech, Villanelle realises that the proximity of their faces is a lot closer than it was a minute ago. Eve stares at her with complete intensity, dark pupils swallowing her irises, enraptured by each word that Villanelle utters. And Villanelle is just as captivated, consumed by the way that Eve looks at her and the feel of Eve’s pulse beneath her fingers and the way that Eve’s plump lips are just slightly parted as if she is thinking about leaning in even closer and-

And then Eve is kissing her, lips coaxing a surprised gasp from Villanelle’s throat.

Well, this is unexpected. Villanelle hoped, she  _ dared  _ to imagine that Eve might entertain an attraction to her but it is beyond her belief that Eve would actually act upon it. Because as much as Villanelle is a certified champion of seduction, Eve is a brilliant star among rocks, a bubble of passion with truly incredible hair, beautiful and divine and far too good for Villanelle.

Villanelle cannot believe that only this morning, she almost threw a tantrum at the prospect of being forced into Eve’s acquaintanceship. If only she had known that her day would end like this, with Eve tongue slipping along the crease between her lips and teasing her into an open-mouthed kiss.

Perhaps the day doesn’t have to end just yet...

“My hotel is just around the corner,” Villanelle murmurs into Eve’s mouth, feeling slightly selfish as she just keeps on taking and taking and  _ taking _ everything that Eve is willing to give her. “If you want to get out of here?”

Eve cups Villanelle’s cheek, blunt fingernails scratching at the scalp just behind her ear in a way that sends a shiver of arousal rippling down her spine.

“Take me there.”

* * *

When Villanelle wakes up she is refreshingly content.

It turns out that Eve is a surprisingly generous lover. Surprising in a good way. Villanelle almost laughs now at her own stupidity last night, at how she had left the bar with Eve’s fingers looped through her own and the full belief that she would be the one rocking Eve’s world. Which she did, of course, but only after Eve had rocked hers first.

_ Three times. _

God, Villanelle will be deliciously sore all day. She rolls over and grins into her pillow at the thought of tonight’s recital, knowing that each rigorous movement of her bow against the strings will give her a delightful reminder of their night together, an ache in her arms that will settle right through her muscles and into her bones for the rest of the day, perhaps even longer.

It’s been a while since Villanelle had sex that good.

Perhaps Eve can be persuaded to go for another round or two this morning.

Villanelle reaches out across the mattress to wake Eve so that she can make her brilliant suggestion, and her eyes flash open in an instant when she realises that the other side of the bed is empty.

It takes a few seconds for Villanelle to reach full consciousness, by which time she becomes aware of the sound of water in her adjoining bathroom hitting the tiles in the shower.

Villanelle smiles. For a brief moment, she panicked and thought that Eve had left without even a goodbye. Which would be incredibly rude, firstly because it is normally Villanelle who pulls that move after a hookup, not the person she slept with, but also because she actually really likes Eve and hopes that there might be a part of Eve that really likes her too.

Wow. That’s a lot to process this early in the morning.

Joining Eve in the shower seems like it could be the ideal way for Villanelle to wake herself up properly before the day ahead.

It is exactly as this wonderful idea pops into her mind, that there is an unwelcome knock at the hotel room door. Villanelle grabs a pillow and presses it over her face, letting out a muffled groan, then reluctantly hauls her pleasantly sore body out from within the tangled sheets. There is a hotel issue bathrobe draped over the back of a chair, which Villanelle swiftly wraps around her body to cover her nakedness, then she crosses over to the door and opens it.

“Konstantin, you bastard, do you not realise how early it is?” she growls, as soon as she flings open the door and realises who has rudely interrupted her plans for a bit of shower debauchery first thing in the morning.

“It is not that early,” he says, ignoring Villanelle's state of semi-undress as he barges past her into the room, completely ignoring her cry of protest as she tries to stop him from entering. “We need to run through the timings for the day.”

“Speaking of timing,” says Villanelle, carefully eyeing the bathroom door, “yours is as shitty as ever.”

“I thought you would be more excited to hear the exact details of your perfor-”

Konstantin cuts off mid-sentence, perhaps realising that Villanelle is paying more attention to the sound of running water coming from the bathroom than she is to whatever he is trying to say to her, and then sighs when he notices the shower for the first time. Villanelle watches, not a morsel of shame in her body, as Konstantin becomes aware of his surroundings, taking in the crumpled sheets and the clothes scattered across the floor, before he shoots her a disappointed glare.

“Can you not go one night without having sex?” he chides her.

“I can go plenty of nights without having sex, actually” she argues back. “Just not last night.”

The running water in the shower stops, and Villanelle prepares herself for the inevitable.

“Before you say anything,” Villanelle starts to warn Konstantin. “She’s really pretty, so can you really blame me?”

“Blame you for what?”

The lock on the bathroom door clicks, and Eve steps out, her curls hanging damp with shower water and her body covered with nothing more than a plush hotel towel wrapped once around her and tucked together under her armpit.

“Hi, Eve!” Villanelle greets her, crossing her legs as she tries to ignore the arousal that threatens to thrum through her veins at the sight of a half-naked and dripping wet Eve.

“Oh,” says Eve, her eyes widening in mixed horror and embarrassment as she notices Konstantin. “Shit. Let me just … sorry!”

Eve rushes around and hastily grabs some of the clothing off the floor, haphazardly scattered around the room in their hurry to undress each other last night. She holds the bundle of clothes close to her chest, the towel still precariously covering up her modesty, then flees back into the bathroom.

“Please tell me that is not the same Eve who is supposed to be accompanying you tonight?”

Villanelle bites her lips as she tries to come up with an appropriate response, knowing very well that anything she says will likely cause Konstantin’s time bomb of anger to explode.

Just as she opens her mouth to make a flippant remark, the bathroom door swings open again and Eve, still dressed in just a towel, hurtles across the room, deliberately avoiding making any eye contact with both of them as she collects the pair of lacy knickers that somehow ended up hanging off the top corner of the television, before running back into the bathroom with a muttered apology.

Villanelle smiles to herself as Eve closes the door once more, with the memory of pulling Eve’s underwear down her gorgeous legs last night and discarding the garment over her shoulder without a care for where it ended up.

“I explicitly told you yesterday that you had to behave!” Konstantin hisses, eyeing the bathroom door that Eve disappeared behind as he manages to sound suitably angry without actually raising his voice.

Villanelle tries to diffuse the situation with a casual gesture of her hand.

“We were just practicing our fingering.” And then, when she gets no reaction from Konstantin, “Do you get it? Because she plays the piano and I play the vi-”

“I got it.”

Konstantin looks thoroughly unamused, which just won’t do because Villanelle thinks her joke warrants at least a small laugh.

Just in case it is not already abundantly clear, to remedy the situation, Villanelle explains, “It’s funny because we had sex.”

“I got it,” repeats Konstantin, burying his hands even deeper into the pockets of his coat, which can only be a sign of how annoyed he is.

It’s really not fair at all for him to judge her like this. In fact, Villanelle decides that it’s paramount to slut shaming.

She opens her mouth to tell him as much, but is cut off when the bathroom door opens again. Eve emerges fully-clothed this time, though her hair still hangs in wet ringlets around her face. 

“I should go,” she announces, though she seems unable to make eye contact with Villanelle as she collects the rest of her belongings and slips her feet into her shoes. “I’ll see you later?”

“Bye, Eve!”

Villanelle waits for Eve to leave the room, smiling passive-aggressively at Konstantin throughout, because it’s his fault that she’s unable to give Eve the proper goodbye that she deserves.

When the hotel door closes behind Eve, leaving Villanelle and Konstantin alone, he starts nagging her again.

“I cannot believe that you would be stupid enough to do this! She is doing you a massive favour, in case you forgot! Without Eve, there would be no concert tonight. Or are you happy to jeopardise your entire career for one night of fun? All those years of hard work, all those hours of practice. All for nothing.”

Konstantin has only just started his rant, but Villanelle is already bored of the sound of his voice. She yawns dramatically, then crosses over to the newly vacated bathroom and locks herself in it. With her back against the door, Villanelle smiles as she hears Konstantin let out a frustrated growl on the other side.

* * *

Once she has showered and dressed, Villanelle eventually manages to get Konstantin off her back, after a few more minutes of unwarranted complaining that she attempts to drown out with a hairdryer, by telling him that she needs to practice for the recital. 

She makes her way to the Barbican later that afternoon, though not until she has changed her shoes twice and checked her appearance in the mirror too many times to possibly count.

Eve is already there when Villanelle arrives, practicing one of the accompaniments on the grand piano in the centre of the stage ahead of their afternoon rehearsal and soundcheck, and Villanelle stops for a moment, watching Eve from the back of the hall as she plays, unaware of the eyes on her. She really is a captivating performer, even when running through an accompanying part and Villanelle’s mind can’t help but wander back to last night, to the  _ other _ captivating performance that Eve gave, to the complete dedication with which she brought Villanelle through crests of pleasure.

Okay, so perhaps this  _ will _ be a little harder than expected.

“Hi, Eve,” says Villanelle, making her presence known by the heavy clunk of her boots against the auditorium stairs as she approaches the stage. “You’re sounding good.”

Eve acknowledges Villanelle’s presence by briefly glancing up from the piano, before she returns her attention to the music in front of her.

“Do you want to run the entire programme or are there specific parts you want to practice?” she asks, collecting the music into a pile and shuffling it into the correct order.

“What?” teases Villanelle, placing down her violin case and opening it up to retrieve the instrument within. “Not even a hello after last night?”

Her eyes remaining focused on the music in her hand, Eve says, “We only have limited time in the hall. We should really make the most of it.”

Her voice is distant, almost cold. It’s certainly not the treatment Villanelle expected after what happened between them last night.

“Seriously?” scoffs Villanelle, picking up her bow in her free hand and walking over to stand next to the piano.  _ “This _ is how you want to do it?”

“Listen, Villanelle,” Eve says, putting down the music on the stand above the piano keys. “Last night shouldn’t have happened. You’re attractive and charming and…” Eve cuts herself off mid-sentence and lets out a sigh, before she finally manages to make eye contact with Villanelle. “It had been a while for me, okay? And you said all the right things so I got carried away, but what we did was horribly unprofessional.”

“It was also a lot of fun,” Villanelle points out.

“Maybe so,” acknowledges Eve, “but we need to put it behind us. For the sake of the concert.”

Villanelle’s eyebrows crinkle together in a frown. She doesn’t understand. Last night was one of the best nights of her life and she was under the impression that Eve had enjoyed herself too. But now it seems like Eve is drawing a line under it, like she is ending things with Villanelle.

People do not just  _ end _ things with Villanelle. Especially not when the thing that is being ended has hardly been given the chance to start in the first place.

“Professional,” says Villanelle, lifting her violin to her shoulder and running her bow across each of the strings in turn as she aggressively tunes the instrument. “Got it.”

* * *

The rehearsal is, to put it bluntly, an unparalleled disaster. 

Villanelle struggles to understand how all the chemistry they had yesterday, how all the passion they had last night, can have disappeared in such a short space of time. But apparently it has, and by the time Villanelle puts her violin away and disappears backstage in a huff, she is fairly certain that she would do a better job with an unwell Nadia as an accompanist than with Eve, who seems to be making every effort to avoid looking at Villanelle.

She sulks in her dressing room until the show, practicing some of the more difficult parts of the programme in privacy, which only makes her more frustrated that she can play perfectly when alone but messed up even the simplest of scales while on stage with Eve. 

When she has changed into a floor length dress, the flowy chiffon a deep blood-red colour, Villanelle tunes her violin again and wanders out of her dressing room, hoping to get a glimpse of her first ever London audience from the wings. She can hear the murmuring of the public as they gather in their seats and far from adding to her nerves, it actually soothes her. These people are here to see  _ her _ and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t give them the best performance she can. 

So what if things are weird with Eve? Villanelle is a professional. Eve is a professional. They can make this work. Professionally.

The audience starts applauding and Villanelle is confused for a moment, before she realises that the lights have dimmed and Eve glides onto the stage from the opposite wing.

She looks … well, she looks amazing. They didn’t coordinate their dresses but it almost seems like they did because Eve is wearing red too, her long dress a few shades darker than Villanelle’s and stunning against her olive skin. Her hair falls in voluminous curls around her face and she’s ditched the glasses entirely, transformed entirely from the cute professor to a veritable goddess in red.

“Have you seen her perform before?”

Villanelle jumps as a voice speaks unexpectedly behind her, and she turns to find the student Eve roped into turning the pages of the piano accompaniments lurking beside her in the wings, a leering grin on his face.

“Nope,” answers Villanelle, popping the ‘p’ to show her disinterest in having a conversation with the student - Humphrey or Horace, or whatever his name is.

“You’re in for a treat,” he tells her. “She’s brilliant.”

“I’m brilliant,” Villanelle murmurs under her breath, irritated by his obvious infatuation with Eve.

As the applause dies down, Eve sits down on the stool and poises herself at the keys. Villanelle is suddenly enraptured by the way that Eve sits, her head hung slightly forward so that her curls spill around her face as she closes her eyes and gets into the zone for performance, commanding the entire audience without yet playing a single note.

But then she looks up, and the angle of the piano and Villanelle’s position in the wings mean that she is directly in Eve’s line of sight.

There is a moment, a painfully long moment, in which everything that has happened between them, the drinks at the bar, the blatant flirting, the soft touches that became more, hungrier, desperate until it was just two bodies moving in tandem with each other as they sought the highest level of enlightenment within each other, it all hangs between them like the most delicate string that could snap at any second.

And then, Eve starts to play, and it is magnificent.

* * *

Watching Eve from the side, Villanelle doesn’t get the chance to experience pre-performance nerves. She is so engrossed in Eve’s performance, so engaged in the way that Eve manages to communicate so much through her playing, that Villanelle almost completely forgets that she is the night’s main attraction. She could watch Eve perform for hours but it is over far too soon, when Eve reaches the whirlwind conclusion of her brief programme and gets to her feet to accept her applause and then Villanelle finds herself walking onto the stage, mindlessly putting one foot in front of the other as she steps into the spotlight and prepares to play.

Okay,  _ now _ Villanelle is nervous. 

So much rides on this performance. Her entire career could splinter into a thousand irreparable pieces if this goes badly. Villanelle knows that she’s good, knows that she’s amazing enough to blow this entire audience away, but what if she’s not? The rehearsal this afternoon was a complete disaster - what if the concert plummets in the same direction? What if one selfish night of passion has destroyed everything.

Villanelle does the only thing that she can, which is to look across at Eve. At Eve, who has already shone brightly on this stage tonight. At Eve, who maybe senses that Villanelle is about to have a breakdown for the first time in her illustrious career and meets her gaze with a reassuring smile. At Eve, who is suddenly the only other person in the auditorium, the only other person who matters, the person who is going to hold her hand and make sure that Villanelle wows.

Feeling her nerves start to settle, Villanelle lifts her violin into place, poises her bow over the strings, and gives Eve an imperceptible nod.

* * *

When Villanelle hits the final dramatic note at the end of the recital, the audience erupts into rapturous applause.

Of course they do. Her performance was incredible. Even a dead person in the audience would have no choice to be impressed with her, such is Villanelle’s stage presence and flair.

Eve was alright too, Villanelle reluctantly admits to herself.

But then, as she straightens up out of her second bow, her gazes catches Eve’s. And Eve is smiling at her, a smile that is half ‘congratulations’ and half ‘thank you’ and half something else and yes, Villanelle is bad at math but she’s a phenomenal violinist and that’s what matters.

Eve is pretty phenomenal too, which is why Villanelle extends her arm out to offer her own thanks and direct some of the audience’s love to Eve too. There are a couple of well-deserved whoops from somewhere in the darkness of the auditorium and Eve takes a small bow of her own, but Villanelle isn’t having it. Eve deserves more than a conservative bow from behind a piano stool.

Villanelle beckons and Eve responds with a quizzical face, as if she doesn’t quite understand why Villanelle would do that. She complies nonetheless, stepping around the piano stool to join Villanelle at the front of the stage. Villanelle transfers her bow into the same hand as her violin, caught between careful fingers, and slips her free hand into Eve’s. Her fingers, calloused from years of diligent violin playing, slot between Eve’s like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that are supposed to fit together. 

Villanelle squeezes her silent thanks and drops into another bow, happy to see Eve mirror the movement out of the corner of her eye.

If she had to share the stage with anybody tonight, Villanelle is glad that it is Eve.

* * *

“I’m impressed,” says Villanelle, as she approaches Eve’s dressing room and hovers just outside. “You were pretty good.”

It is later now, and though Villanelle’s violin is safely back in its case in her own dressing room down the hall, the post-performance glow hasn’t yet left her body. She hasn’t felt this alive since … well, since last night, if Villanelle is completely honest.

It’s an Eve thing, she decides. Eve is the one who makes her feel like this.

“I’m sorry about this afternoon,” apologises Eve, looking up at Villanelle, who still lingers in the doorward, afraid to enter without an invitation. “I was stressed about the concert, and stressed about you, and…”

“Stressed about me?”

“Yeah,” admits Eve, with a tiny wince. “I thought that maybe I had ruined both our careers for one self-indulgent night.”

“Two things,” Villanelle interjects. “One; I don’t know if you recall, but you were far from self-indulgent last night. I don’t remember exactly how many times you got me off, but it was a  _ lot.” _

Villanelle can see Eve’s cheeks start to flush as she looks down at the floor, and she presses on.

“And two,” continues Villanelle, taking a few steps into the dressing room so that she is standing directly in front of Eve. She takes one of Eve’s hands in her own, linking their fingers together in a reminder of their final bow together on stage. “Who says it has to be just one night?”

Eve’s eyes widen in surprise at this.

“You - I…” Eve pauses, then swallows, before she asks, “You mean that? I thought, well, I guess I assumed it was only a one night stand for you.”

“Eve, after some of the things you did to me last night, you can have me every night for the rest of our lives,” teases Villanelle, squeezing Eve’s fingers between her own. And then, because she wants Eve to know that she is one hundred percent serious about this, she adds, “And against the odds, I do actually like you. A lot. There’s something about you - this  _ connection. _ You felt it on stage too, right?”

Eve looks directly into Villanelle’s eyes. She feels it again, this pull, or whatever it is, this certainty that Eve is supposed to mean something to her, more than just a helpful accompanist who helped her in a tricky situation.

“I felt it,” whispers Eve, nodding her head in agreement.

“I’m only in London for two more nights,” Villanelle admits, full of sadness at the thought of leaving a city that, up until yesterday, she thought was grey and inconsequential, just another place to conquer with her violin. “But I’ll be back later in the summer. They said they might give me one of the Proms, if tonight went well. And I was amazing tonight, so…”

Villanelle doesn’t get the chance to say anything else because Eve cuts her off with a kiss, surging forward and pressing her lips to Villanelle’s as if she simply couldn’t wait a single second longer. Villanelle winds her free hand around Eve’s back, pulling her in close as she opens her mouth to accept the swipe of tongue that Eve offers her, swallowing the hum of pleasure that escapes from Eve’s lips.

“Mine or yours?” Villanelle mumbles into Eve’s mouth, as her hand dips lower to paw at Eve’s ass through her dress.

Eve walks Villanelle backwards without disconnecting their lips, nudging Villanelle’s back into the door and forcing it to close under her bodyweight, shutting them both inside the tiny dressing room, away from the rest of the world.

“Shut up and take me right here, you idiot.”


End file.
